Hi Cristine and all, Interesting discussion and points,
Actually fairly equivalent precursors to Google were invented pre-1990 by the folks at Thinking Machines (notably, Danny Hillis, Brewster Kahle, Craig Stanfill and David Waltz). The program ran on massively parallel computers on about 5 years worth of the Wall Street Journal. The interface and functionality were pretty similar to Google (and it probably offered some secondary functionality that Google doesn't offer - I don't know enough about the Google algorithm to directly speak to it.) Another point to consider - is - that it is the technology underlying Google that allows its interface to be so simple. (as a note, most people who played a role in TMC's text retrieval project were phd's from MIT, although though it should be mentioned - in light of this set of discussions - that Brewster has a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT). two references: http://battellemedia.com/archives/000712.php http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=7907&dl=ACM&coll=portal&CFID=33592154&CFTOKEN=39196368 Thanks, Donna Fritzsche Information Architect/Ontologist On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:39:53 -0400, Christine Boese wrote > I'm a bit out of the loop for "recent," but just to rail off a few > from the top of my head: > > Moodle, the open source e-learning courseware support platform, has arisen > largely from academic research into pedagogical interface design. > > Most of the best research into advanced VR interfaces and evolving interface > conventions have come out of academic research labs. Carnegie Melon > is starting to really kick ass in this area too, aren't they? Beyond > CAVE and the other usual suspects. > > The most rigorous HCI and usability testing methods can be found in > academia, which is not bound by many of the expediencies that can > bias results, such as you find in industry usability practices, > which are often very sloppy and possibly invalid most of the time. > > Then, when you add in the innovations in wearable computing > interfaces, ubiquitous computing/ambient interface effects, and > interactive cinema interfaces that have come out of places like the > MIT Media Lab and GA Tech, I'd say the scale tips way over into > academic research as being quite a bit more innovative. > > You could also count Google coming out of Stanford, right? At a time > when everyone thought that search interfaces were cluttered portals, > and that no new innovation could come into that area. Take Stanford > out of the picture, and would you even have Google? (going back > into the day... we could also link Lycos to CMU, and didn't > WebCrawler come out of a university as well?) > > Again, I hearken back to history, but a lot more has come out of > NCSA at Champaign Urbana than just Marc Andreessen. > > Perhaps most significantly, we might notice one interface in > particular that DIDN'T come out of academia, or really what anyone > would call "industry" for that matter either: blogs. After the > development of the graphical browser at NCSA in 1993, I'd say the > innovation brought about by blogs (and not just Dave Winer and RSS) > has had the largest effect on the landscape of the Internet. Hum, > maybe no. I might have to put Google ahead of blogs and RSS, and > social media after that. > > Think of how we can now divide our universe. For a while, it was pre- > web, and post-web. Now, I like to refer to our world as BG and AG, > meaning Before Google, and After Google. I think also we are > reaching the point where we might also make a division of the world > into BB and AB, meaning Before Blogosphere, and After Blogosphere. > > Chris > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
